^^w^

L I B RARY

OF THE

UNIVLRSITY

or ILLINOIS

/

SPEECH

OF

THE MOST HONOTTEABLE THE

MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE,

ON THE

SECOND READING OF THE

COMPENSATION FOR DISTURBANCE

(IRELAND) BILL.

DELIVERED

IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS,

Monday, August 2, 1880.

Extracted from
'♦HANSARD'S PABLIAMENTARY DEBATES,"

Vol. cclv.

LONDON :
CORNELIUS BUCK, 22, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.

1880.

SPEECH.

oO-)0<O>—

HOUSE OF LORDS

Monday, 2nd Augmt, 1880.

The Marquess of LANSDOWNE:
My Lords, I have to ask your Lordships
to bear with me for a few moments
while I endeavour to justify the vote
which I shall give when this discussion
comes to a close. I shall record that
vote with feelings of sincere regret. It
is painful to me to oppose a measure
which is intended to relieve distress in
a country to which I am bound by the
warmest sympathy. It is not less painful
to me to find myself separated for the
moment from noble Lords below me
with whom I have, I believe, acted con-
sistently ever since I have had the
honour of a seat in your Lordships'
House. And, my Lords, let me say at
the outset that whatever maybe my ob-
jections to this Bill, however great my
regret at its introduction under the cir-
cumstances of the present time, and the
alarm which I experience when I con-
sider its effects, I have no complaint
to make with regard to the intentions of
those who have introduced it. Those
intentions have been made perfectly
clear by the noble Earl the Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs (Earl
Grranville), and by his Colleagues. Her
Majesty's Ministers intend — and we note
the announcement which they have
made on this point — to administer the
law in Ireland with a vigorous and
fearless hand ; but they desire to take
precautions, lest under cover of that law
any injustice should be done to those
against whom it will be enforced. Those
are just and generous intentions ; but
it is not enough that the intentions

should be good; and we contend that
while the object of Her Majesty's Go-
vernment is a laudable one, the means
which they desire to adopt in order to
attain it are means which will involve a
cruel injustice to one class of the com-
munity, will excite dangerous expecta-
tions and foster mischievous opinions in
the mind of another class, will antici-
pate, upon imperfect information, the
action of Parliament on a question which
is not yet ripe for decision, and will
strike at public confidence and security
in Ireland a blow the traces of which
will not be effaced by volumes of reme-
dial legislation and years of vigorous
government..

What, my Lords, does this Bill do?
It singles out a particular class of the
community, it singles out a particular
section of that class, it singles out a
particular contract into whicli that sec-
tion has entered, and it announces,
with all the solemnity of an Act of Par-
liament, that the Legislature is going to
revise the terms of that contract in fa-
vour of one of the parties to it, so that
if that party fails to fulfil its obligations
the Legislature will shield it from those
consequences which in every civilized
society result from the breach of a con-
tract to those who have brokejp. it.

Now, what is the class in favour of
which we are asked to interfere, and
what is the obligation from which it is
to be relieved ?

The class is that for which, during
the last two or three years, a virulent
agitation has demanded this very con-
cession. The obligation is that attach-
ing to a debt the payment of whicli has
been denounced as a crime; a debt
which, if it differs from other debts,
differs from them in this respect — that
unless the debtor had been allowed to
incur it, he would have had no credit upon
which to incur any other debts whatso-

( 4 )

ever ; a debt whicli the law has certainly
not hitherto regarded as of secondary
obligation, compared with others, but
which the Legislature is now to ear-
mark as the only one to which the ordi-
nary rules of commercial contract are
inapplicable.

I ask your Lordships to consider the
effect of such a step upon the character
and conduct of the tenant farmers of
L^eland, and I venture to express my
belief that if you desire utterly to de-
bauch their consciences, hopelessly to
extinguish within their minds all self-
reliance and honesty, if you want to
encourage them to look anywhere but to
their own energy and efforts for extri-
cation from their difficulties, you have
only to pass the Bill now before your
Lordships' House. For, my Lords,
who are the men who will reap these
exceptional benefits ? EecoUect you
are not compelling the landlords to con-
cede, in consequence of the failure of
the crops, a general and proportionate
abatement of their rents ; but you are
compelling them, in every case where
they find themselves obliged to proceed
against half-a-dozen of their insolvent
tenants, to pay to that particular half-
a-dozen a heavy — I might almost say
ruinous — rate of compensation. In 99
cases out of 100, these men will be
the worst and most improvident far-
mers, and the most careless cultiva-
tors, who have failed when their more
skilful and thrifty neighbours have kept
their heads above water. These are the
men who are to have access to the ad-
vantages of this measure. I ask your
Lordships, whether, by extending this
special protection to those who least de-
serve it, and withholding it from those
who most deserve encouragement, you
are likely to stimulate industry and
skill, or to destroy them ?

My Lords, not only is this a conces-
sion to demands which should never
have been listened to ; but it is a most
inopportune concession. What is the
condition of Ireland at the present mo-
ment ? It has been described as being
* * within a measurable distance of civil
war." I will not pause to consider
whether that description is one entirely
warranted by the facts ; but I certainly
fully sharo the feelings of alarm with
which th('j Prime Minister views the
state of ijreland. It is impossible to
speak of it without mortification and

disappointment for the past, and appre-
hension for the future.

We are, unfortunately, not unfamiliar
with Irish disaffection, and we have had
experience of former periods of dis-
loyalty and disorder in that country ;
but I do not believe that an epidemic
of disloyalty and disorder has yet oc-
curred there so dangerous as that which
now affects some portions of Ireland.
We have had an agitation for Ee-
peal ; we have had the miserable exhi-
bition known as the Fenian outbreak ;
we have had the Home Rule agitation.
All these have obtained a temporary,
but, I believe, a superficial hold upon
the minds of the Irish people. They
were too unpractical in their objects to
acquire a deep and permanent hold ;
their ends were never clearly defined ;
their supporters were never able to
agree as to the means by which their
objects were to be achieved; they gave
expression to the vague aspirations of a
sentimental and imaginative race. The
present agitation differs widely from
these ; there is nothing vague, nothing
unpractical about it ; it appeals, not to
the sentiments and the imagination, but
to the more sordid and eminently prac-
tical instincts of the peasantry. Its ends
are clear and intelligible ; the means by
which it is to be arrived at are well
understood ; it appeals, not to the senti-
ments and the imagination of the farmers,
but to their pockets ; its end is the de-
struction of the landlords, and the trans-
fer of their property to others ; its means
are agrarian crime, and agrarian agita-
tion directed at the depreciation of
landed property, and the destruction of
public security.

Do not let me be understood to say
that the whole of the peasantry of Ire-
land are infected with this contagion. I
believe that a small minority only of
them are so infected ; but I tell your
Lordships that beyond these, the great
mass of the small tenants in Ireland are
watching and waiting — watching the
struggle which is going on between
order and anarchy — waiting in order
that they may throw in their lot with taht
which proves to be the stronger side.

At such a moment a single step across
the frontier which divides justice from
injustice, a single concession extorted, in
appearance, by pressure from without,
cannot fail to have far-reaching and
disastrous consequences ; and yet that is

( s )

the moment which Her Majesty's Minis-
ters have selected for the introduction
of a proposal dealing with the very
basis and fundamental principle of land
tenure in Ireland.

Let us consider for a moment how
this Bill will operate. There is a re-
markable descrepancy between the anti-
cipations of its supporters upon this
point. Great efforts have been made,
amongst others, by the noble Lord
(Lord Emly) who has just addressed
your Lordships, to minimize its effects.
The noble Lord told us that it would
have ''hardly any operation at all;"
but it is interesting to compare with the
anticipation of the noble Lord the state-
ment of the Prime Minister, who an-
nounced the other day that the Bill was
one to confer on the occupiers of land in
Ireland ''privileges and gifts of enor-
mous value." I had always understood,
by the way, that there was something
eminently uncongenial to Liberal ears
in the sound of the word privilege, and
it certainly is one of my objections to
the Government measure that it does
confer a class privilege, and that one of
a very objectionable kind. Now, which
is the truer account of the Bill ? I be-
lieve that, if it is strictly interpreted, it
will, in a large majority of cases, prove
ineffectual as a measure of relief where
relief is most required. If you exclude
those cases where the tenant has been
ruined by his own improvidence, his own
want of skill, or by the fact that his
holding, even in prosperous years, is too
small to support him, you will find that
a great number of the most urgent cases
will not be touched by the Government
measure, which may, I think, be fairly
described as one involving a maximum
of vicious principle with a minimum of
real relief to those in whose interest it
has been introduced.

Let us, however, suppose that it ope-
rates as it is intended by Her Majesty's
Government that it should operate. This
will be the kind of result which it will
produce. The owner of a small estate,
upon which he depends, perhaps, en-
tirely for his income, an estate purchased
very likely with the savings of a lifetime
of hard work upon the security of a
statutory title — a title which, if it had
any meaning, conferred upon the pur-
chaser a right not to the merely nominal
ownership of the soil, but to the income
derived from it, an income publicly set

forth by the Court through which the
purchase wasmade — such an owner, find-
ing that his tenants are utterly insolvent,
that their stock has disappeared, that
their land is exhausted, that they have
no prospect whatever of paying the
two years' rent which they owe him, is
to be compelled to leave those tenants
upon their holdings, on terms to be ap-
pointed by the County Court Judge, on
pain of a fine equal to one-third of the
fee simple value of the land. The rents
may have been reasonable, the ruin of
the tenant in no sense consequent upon
any act of the landlord ; there may be
other tenants willing to enter into occu-
pation ; the landlord may be ready to
submit without a murmur to the loss of
the arrears, but you say to him— "If
you, finding that the parties with whom
this contract was made are unable to
fulfil it, desire to terminate that contract,
you shall be fined for doing so, in exactly
the same way as you would be fined
under the existing law, if you removed
your tenants in order to turn their hold-
ings into a grouse moor or a deer forest."

My Lords, we are desired to bear in
mind the safeguards with which this Bill
is surroundecj, and the conditions which
are to be fulfilled before the County
Court Judge can award any damages
against the landlord. I must be allowed
to express my opinion that it will be
absolutely beyond the power of any
County Court Judge to determine in each
case whether those conditions are, or are
not, present. The most inquisitorial
investigation of the circumstances and
antecedents of the tenant will not, for
instance, enable him to decide whether
the man's insolvency is entirely due to
the failure of his crops. The competition
of foreign imports, low prices at home,
accumulated debt, careless Jiusbandry,
all these, quite as much as bad harvests,
have brought ruin on the small tenant
farmers. How is it possible for any Judge,
especially when a class of evidence is
before him with which Irish local Courts
are only too familiar, to determine the
extent to which each of these causes has
been responsible in the partipular case
brought under his jurisdiction ?

But there is one safeguard upon which
we are told to rely when all others fail.
The landlord is to offer the tenant a
" reasonable alternative." "What is the
' ' reasonable alternative ? " "We are not
given any information about it. Farlia-

( 6 >

ment is not to define it, because, I sup-
pose, it is incapable of definition ; and,
therefore, the duty of defining it is to be
relegated to the County Court Judge.
Unfortunately, however, we can con-
struct for ourselves something like an
account of the '' reasonable alternative."
"We know its Parliamentary history, and
the circumstances under which it effected
its entrance into the Bill. The Amend-
ment which introduced it was proposed
by the Prime Minister in substitution for
another Amendment of which Notice
had been given in " another place " by
one of the Irish Law Ofiicers of the
Crown. The Law Officer's Amendment
enabled the landlord to escape from the
payment of compensation by permitting
his tenant to sell his interest in his hold-
ing ; and it was objected to this that,
under certain circumstances, that interest
might prove to have no saleable value,
and, therefore, in order to meet the case
where the tenant's interest might prove
unsaleable, the ''reasonable alternative"
was invented, under which, whenever
the tenant right could be shown to have
become absolutely valueless, the land-
lord might be compelled to purchase it
at a price to be fixed by the County
Court Judge.

We can, therefore, now arrive at
something like an idea of the position
of the landlord under the "reasonable
alternative " clause of the Bill. First,
he may be required, in consequence of
a temporary difficulty, to introduce upon
his estate the custom of tenant right,
of which he very probably much dis-
approves, and which he has, at the
cost of n^uch trouble and expense,
endeavoured for years past to exclude
by every means in his power, a custom
which once admitted upon an estate
can never subsequently be got rid
of. Secondly, should the tenant be
unable to convert the interest thus ac-
corded to him into money, the land-
lord is to be made to buy it. Ob-
serve, if you please, that at this point
you are going very far beyond the
limits of tk© Ulster custom. It is one
of the iuclidents of that custom that a
tenant evicted for non-payment of rent
may claim to sell his goodwill ; but if
he cannot find a purchaser, he cannot
claim compensation from the landlord ;
so that yoii are, in fact, giving to these
tenants, wlio are outside the area covered
by the Ulster custom and by analogous

customs, and who have paid not a six-
pence for the acquisition of the privilege,
a right not conceded even to the Ulster
tenants who have, we were told by the
Prime Minister in 1870, paid£20,000,000
in order to obtain the advantages of the
tenant right custom. Thirdly, if such an
arrangement does not commend itself to
the landlord, he is to leave the tenant to
complete the exhaustion of his own re-
sources and those of the land for a
further period of 18 months. And,
fourthly, if the landlord cannot make up
his mind to submit to this he is required
to pay a fine equal to seven years' pur-
chase of the holding.

My Lords, there is a proverbial alter-
native sometimes encountered by those
who are unlucky in public or private
life, and which is familiarly described
as '' finding oneself between the devil
and the deep sea." I do not know
whether to that alternative Her Ma-
jesty's Ministers would attach the
epithet ''reasonable."

And now, my Lords, I will, with the
permission of the House, consider some
of the arguments which have been ad-
vanced in support of this extraordinary
proposal; and I will take first that
argument which the noble Earl who
moved the second reading of the Bill
has founded upon the increase in the
number of evictions. It is necessary to
deal cautiously with the statistics affect-
ing this subject, because our Tables
have lately been inundated with these
melancholy Eeturns, and it is not very
easy to decide which of the numerous
sets of figures that have been laid before
Parliament represent the actual facts of
the case. I will, however, deal with
that which seems to be the most recent
Eeturn. What does it disclose ? Cer-
tainly that there has been an increase,
and a considerable one, in the number
of evictions lately carried out over the
numbers of former years. Can we be
surprised at this ? The landlords have
had to encounter a widespread and de-
termined resistance to the payment of
rent ; organizations have been set on
foot with this object ; and a landlord who
resolves to insist upon his rights has
only one course open to him — he must
show that he does not intend to be
frightened into submission; and when
he is satisfied, as many landlords have
had good reason to be satisfied, that rents
are withheld because the tenants are

( ? )

not so much unable as unwilling to pay
them, he is bound in self-defence to have
recourse to the law.

What, again, is the extent of the in-
crease? The Return shows that in 1877,
261 families were evicted, and 80 rein-
stated as care-takers; in 1878, 608
families evicted, and 171 reinstated;
in 1879, 903 families evicted, and 373
reinstated ; and in the first six months
of 1880, 995 families were evicted, of
whom 392 were replaced as care-takers.

Let me observe, with reference to these
care-takers, that as far as my experience
goes, when a tenant is allowed after
eviction to remain on his farm as care-
taker, the arrangement is generally
made with a view to his ultimately re-
acquiring possession of his holding.
Excluding the caretakers, you have, in
round numbers, 600 tenants who have
lost their homes in the last six months.
And even from this number your Lord-
ships must make some deduction on
account of those whose equity of re-
demption has not expired, and who
will, no doubt, some of them redeem
their holdings.

I ask your Lordships whether these
figures point to the conclusion that the
landlords of Ireland have been taking
advantage of their tenants' difficulties
in order to clear their estates. There
are, roughly speaking, about 600,000
tenants in Ireland ; and I do not think
we are warranted in believing that in
the last half-year much more than one
in every 1,000 of these has lost his hold-
ing absolutely and finally. It would be
interesting to know whether in this
country, where landlords are certainly
not subject to the imputation of clearing
their estates, the number of farmers who
have been deprived of their homes is not
proportionately higher than this ? I
suspect that it is. But be this as it may,
I cannot admit that the facts, as stated
by the promoters of this Bill, are such
as to justify the wholesale interference
with agricultural contracts which we
have been asked to sanction.

Next, my Lords, we are informed that
this Bill is only a legitimate develop-
ment of the principles contained in the
Land Act of 1 870. Now, if I wished to
prove how widely the proposal of 1880
differs from that of 1870, I would call
your Lordships' attention to the differ-
ence between the reception accorded to
the one measure and to the other by

owners of land in Ireland. When the
Land Act of 1870 was before Parlia-
ment it received the support of a large
number of Irish proprietors, many of
whom took a prominent part in the de-
bates, and spared no effort to render the
measure an effectual one for the protec-
tion of the Irish tenants. But what is
the case now ? There is scarcely a single
individual familiar with the circum-
stances of landed property in that coun-
try who does not see the immense
dangers of the Government Bill, and
oppose it with all his might.

Noble Lords who have appealed to
the precedent of the Land Act will ex-
cuse me if I remind them of that
which the Act did, and that which it
did not do, for the occupiers of land in
Ireland. In the first place, it gave to the
Ulster tenants, and to those who held
under analogous customs, a statutory
right to their interest. They or their
predecessors had paid large sums for
the acquisition of that right, and the
law secured them thenceforth in its en-
joyment. To the tenants outside the
area of the tenant right custom the Act
gave two things — an absolute property
in their improvements, and, beyond this,
a right to compensation under certain
very carefully-defined conditions. That
compensation was intended to afford the
tenant a security against capricious evic-
tion, and his right to it was given sub-
ject to two strict limitations — first, he
was precluded from claiming it unless
he had paid his rent ; secondly, the in-
terest created for him was not to be a
saleable interest.

In order to establish beyond dispute
my contention upon this point, I will
quote to the House the words used by
the Prime Minister in " another place "
in the debate upon the second reading
of the Land Bill. Mr. Gladstone said,
in 1870—

"Our main contention is this — that the great
remedy which, apart from custom, ought to ho
provided for the Irish occupier, shodd be pro-
vided for him in the shape of a shelter against
eviction, of a penalty, if I may so call it, upon
eviction, but not upon the footing" ot" a joint
property in the soil. When he has paid his
money that gives him guch property .... he
is entitled to be protected ; but I am not pre-
pared, nor are my Colleagues, to admit that the
just protection of him affords either an apology
or a reason for endowing him with a joint pro-
perty in the soil." — [3 Eaxsard, cxcix. 1844.]

Now, your Lordships will observe

( 8 )

from tlie above statement that it was
clearly understood that the tenant was
to have no '* property " given to him in
his holding ; and having no property
given to him, he had, of course, no in-
terest which could, under any circum-
stances, become a saleable one. This
Bill, however, deliberately overrides
both these limitations. It proceeds, as
has been stated over and over again by
its supporters — upon the assumption
that the Land Act did give to the tenant
a ''property;" and it provides that,
under certain circumstances, that pro-
perty may become a saleable one, with
this further stipulation which I have
already explained to the House — that
when the tenant's interest proves to
have no marketable value, the landlord
may find himself compelled to purchase
it at a price to be fixed by the County
Court Judge.

Then, my Lords, we are told that if
the principle of this Bill is not to be
found in what may be called the main
provisions of the Land Act, it may yet
be discovered in one of its minor sections,
and it is said that the 9th clause of the
Act is one which admits that principle.

Now, it is, no doubt, true that under
the clause in question the tenant may,
under certain circumstances, claim com-
pensation for disturbance, although he
is evicted for non-payment of rent. But
what are those circumstances ? My
Lords, the clause is strictly limited.
. First, it applies only to tenancies created
before the passing of the Act — a distinc-
tion which at once places it upon a dif-
ferent footing from this Bill. Further,
it applies onl^'- to cases in which the
landlord had allowed a large arrear to
accumulate over the tenant's head, or in
which the rent which he had imposed
was an exorbitant rent. But in both of
these cases the insolvency of the tenant
results from the act of the landlord, and
from the oppressive exercise of his
rights ; w^iereas this Bill deals with the
wholly dii'erent case where the tenant's
ruin has been occasioned, not by the
conduct of his landlord, but by what is
spoken'of as the "act of God." And
yet it is argued that whether the tenant
has been ruined by extortion, for which
the landlord alone is accountable, or by
misfortune, over which the landlord has
no control, the landlord is to be fined
just as if he were equally responsible in
the one case and in the other.

Nor is the argument which the noble
Earl (Earl Granville) has founded upon
the fact that one of the clauses of the
Land Act underwent an alteration in
your Lordships' House, more convincing
than that which I have just noticed, and
for much the same reason — namely, that
the clause in question, which was made
somewhat more precise in its language
by your Lordships in Committee, was
one of which the application was re-
stricted to tenancies in existence at the
time of the passing of the Act, a limita-
tion which is, of course, not to be found
in this Bill, and the absence of which
alters entirely its scope and character.

I will now pass to another argument,
remarkable chiefly because it illustrates
the weakness of the case in favour of
the Bill. I mean the argument based
upon the difference between the law
under which an Irish landlord can pro-
ceed against his tenants, and that which
applies to the same class of cases in this
country.

I believe I am right in saying that as
regards the termination of tenancies by
notice to quit, the law is the same in
both countries ; but with regard to pro-
ceedings otherwise than by notice to
quit, there is, no doubt, a difference.
That difference is as follows : — In Eng-
land, when six months' rent is due, the
landlord may serve his tenant with a
writ of ejectment, without any formal
demand, only in cases where a right of
re-entry has been reserved under the
express conditions of the contract. In
Ireland, however, when 12 months' rent
is due the landlord may at once proceed
by writ of ejectment, whether he has or
has not reserved the right of so proceed-
ing. Besides this, on every writ of
habere in Ireland, there must be en-
dorsed a statement of the amount due
by the tenant, and if before execution
of the writ that amount, together with
the cost, is paid into Court, the pro-
ceedings are at once stayed.

Now, your Lordships will observe
that while the Irish tenant is worse off
than his English brother, inasmuch as
he may in all cases be served with a
writ of ejectment as soon as his rent is
in arrear, whether the right of re-entry
has been reserved or not, he is better
off than the English tenant, in so far
as he may run into arrear for 12
months instead of six, and in so far as
there is open to him a cheap and expe-

( 9 )

ditious mode of staying proceedings
after they have been commenced.

I have a strong impression that the
Irish tenant would, upon the whole,
prefer to remain in his present position,
rather than have the law assimilated to
that of England, and this for three rea-
sons : — first, because he attaches con-
siderable importance to the privilege of
running into arrear for 12 months;
secondly, because when he owes 12
months' rent the formal service of a
notice to quit does not in any way im-
prove his position ; thirdly, because if
the law were changed, the Irish land-
lords would, in all probability, very
frequently reserve to themselves a right
of re-entry whenever a certain amount
of rent became due, in the same manner
as that right is usually reserved in a
written agreement in this country.

I will, at this point, notice a reference
which was made by the noble Lord
(Lord Emly) to the law with regard to
agricultural holdings in France. The
noble Lord told us that, under an
Article of the Code Napoleon, when
more than half of the tenant's crops
have been destroyed by what is called a
cas fortuit, he may claim the remis-
sion of a certain part of his rent. Now,
upon that I wish to make this observa-
tion. The Article quoted embodies the
well understood law of the land ; and it
is with the full knowledge of the exist-
ance of that law that all agricultural
contracts are entered into by the parties.
The Bill now before the House, on the
contrary, introduces into existing con-
tracts a provision never contemplated
either by landlord or tenant when the
contract was made.

Besides this I might add that, to the
best of my recollection, under the Code
Napoleon, it is open to landlord and
tenant to contract themselves out of the
Article in question, in so far as it has
reference to such a cas fortuit as the
failure of the tenant's crops; and, finally,
I am not aware that there is in the Code
Napoloon any Article by which, under
any circumstances, the landlord can be
fined seven times the annual rent of the
farm in the event of his resuming pos-
session of it from the tenant. I think,
therefore, that we mayput aside as irrele-
vant the argument which the noble Lord
has founded upon the Code Napoleon.

I understood the noble Earl again to
contend that the Legislature has a right

to impose these restrictions upon the
landlords, because the latter have, dur-
ing the past winter, received advances of
public money, which advances they have
spent in the improvement of their es-
tates, on exceptionally favourable terms
as to interest and re-payment. With
regard to this, I must be permitted to
remind the House of the circumstances
under which these advances were made.
The late Government determined, I
think very wisely, to follow the pre-
cedent of the Famine of 1847, and to
make use of the landlords as the best
agency for the distribution of relief.
The landlords were accordingly, in the
autumn of 1879, offered advances on
terms slightly more favourable than
those upon which money is ordinarily
to be obtained from the Board of Works.
The result was remarkable. Except in
an utterly insignificant number of cases,
the terms were not accepted. The reason
is not far to seek. The landowners felt
that, except as a means of alleviating
distress, a great portion of the relief
works would be of very doubtful value.
They, no doubt, felt also that, owing to
the prevalence of agitation, and the gene-
ral insecurity of Irish property, it was
imprudent to 'add to their liabilities by-
increasing the charges upon their estates.
It was under these circumstances that
the Irish Government found it necessary
again to revise the terms upon which
loans were offered, and accordingly they
issued their notice of January 12, 1880,
under which large sums have been ad-
vanced and spent in the scheduled dis-
tricts. The low rate of interest was in-
tended as a compensation to the landlords
for the risk which they undoubtedly ran ;
and you have no right, aftei* inducing
them to take up money upon a clear
understanding as to the conditions of
the loan, to attach to the bargain a new
and ex post facto condition, such as that
proposed in the Government measure. I
will venture to say that if any such condi-
tion had been hinted at at the time when
the loans were offered, very few, if any, of
the landlords would have accepted them.

My Lords, whenever we criticize the
Bill of Her Majesty's Ministers, we are
met with the rejoinder that it is a purely
exceptional measure, and that it applies
only to a part of Ireland, and to that
part only for a short period of time.

I confess that I am utterly unable to
see how either of these limitations can

( 10 )

logically be upheld. Take, in the first
place, the limitation of area. We are
told perpetually that the extra-Ulster
tenants have a grievance because they
do not enjoy the security afforded to the
farmers • protected by the tenant right
custom, and who are divided from them
by a more or less arbitrary boundary
line. But, if this is the case, surely the
tenants in the non-scheduled districts
will have a very similar grievance as
compared with their brethren in the
secheduled districts ; and this grievance
will be the more conspicuous if it should
prove to be the case, as has been stated
apparently on excellent authority, that
there are actually more evictions in the
non-scheduled than in the scheduled
districts.

The inconsistency of the limitation in
point of area is, however, nothing com-
pared to the inconsistency of the limita-
tion in point of time. Look, in the first
place, at the absurdity of giving to these
tenants an interest in their holdings
which shall have all the incidents of
property, which shall be saleable, which
shall be the subject of compensation, up
to the last day of 1881, but which, on
and after the first day of 1882, shall
cease to be property, and be deprived of
all the incidents attaching thereto.

I should like to ask the noble and
learned Lord upon the Woolsack whether,
in the whole of our legal system, there is
any precedent for the creation of pro-
perty subject to such a condition as this ?

My Lords, when this Bill is spoken of
as a temporary and exceptional one, it
is my duty to ask your Lordships
whether we have any right to assume
that the recent distress is of a wholly
exceptional character, or whether our
experience of Ireland, and our know-
ledge of its condition, does not rather
justify a contrary belief? We shall be
sanguine, indeed, if we can persuade
ourselves that in a country for which,
by a melancholy pre-eminence, has been
reserved the epithet ''distressful," dis-
tress will never recur. In a district with
which I am very familiar we have had
the great Tamine of 1847, which did
not end till 1850. We had again, in
1861, a scarcity not less great than the
present. So that, in little more than 30
years, we have gone through three
periods of exceptional distress. Can we
expect any other result in a country
within which 175,000 tenants occupy

holdings valued at or under £4 a-year —
a country in three counties of which
alone there are 54,000 such tenancies?
My Lords, distress wiU recur ; and when-
ever it does you will have to encounter
the demand for a renewal of this legis-
lation. Sometimes the demand will be
founded on genuine distress ; but I fear
that if it be once admitted that the
landlords are responsible for failures
occasioned by adverse seasons, you will,
to use the expression made use of by a
friend of mine the other day, '' have no
more fine weather in Ireland." You
will open up a new branch of Irish
industry — the manufacture of distress —
and, instead of self-reliance and thrift,
you will have perpetual appeals for as-
sistance at the public expense, and a fierce
competition for admission within the
sacred precincts of the scheduled districts.

Before I sit down I would ask your
Lordships' attention to the effects of this
Bill, should it become law, upon the
future of legislation affecting land.

Her Majesty's Ministers are deeply
committed to a scheme, whereby the
present occupiers of land in Ireland are
to be enabled to acquire the freehold of
their farms. Such a scheme was em-
bodied in the Land Act of 1870, and
a Royal Commission has just been
appointed, which is to report upon
the best means of developing the pro-
ject. The scheme proceeds upon the
assumption that advances of public
money are to be made to the tenants,
in order to enable them to purchase
their holdings ; and that, until the ad-
vances have been repaid, they will stand
to the Government in the relation of
debtor to creditor. Now, I ask your
Lordships to consider what sort of
debtors these embryo proprietors will
make, if, whenever their crops fail, they
have the precedent of this Bill for with-
holding payment of their rents; and
what sort of security will the public
have for the repayment of the debt due
to it, if that debt is to be singled out
as one to which the ordinary obligation
of a debt is for the future not to attach ?

But it is not only with regard to Eng-
lish land that the Government is pledged
to legislate. " Free Trade in Land " is
one of the war-cries of those who pro-
mote this Bill. Farmers are to be
emancipated from restrictive covenants,
landlords from the fetters of settlements
and limitations of ownership. Here

( 11 )

are some excellent sentiments with re-
gard to farm tenure —

" Contracts and agreements between landlord
and tenant on the farm ought to be upon the
same reasonable and perfectly fair and equal
principles as those that are made between the
landlord of a mill and the manufacturer who
works it."

These words were spoken a year ago, at
Bradford, by the Chief Secretary to the
Lord Lieutenant. What a misfortune
it is that such admirable principles
should be unable to thrive in the atmo-
sphere of the Phoenix Park !

I read, not many days ago, an account
of a celebration, presided over by the
noble Earl the Lord President, at the
dinner of the Cobden Club. This par-
ticular programme of Land Reform was
very distinctly enunciated, and very
warmly received, by the noble Earl and
his friends ; but if it is once admitted
that contracts affecting land are liable
to revision by the Legislature in the
spirit of this Bill, does the noble Earl
imagine that anyone will be able to sell
land or willing to buy it ? No settlements,
no legal ingenuity, will fetter the posses-
sion of land with such disabilities as a
course of legislation of the kind which
the House is invited to approach to-night.

My Lords, I ventured to describe to
your Lordships the effect which this
Bill was likely to produce upon the
minds of the peasantry of Ireland, and
I endeavoured to show that it would de-
moralize them, and lead them to look
anywhere but to their own efforts for an
escape from their present difficulties. I
will now say one word of the effects
which it will have upon another class —
a class numerically small, no doubt, and
too often ignored or forgotten — but on
behalf of which, nevertheless, I appeal
to your Lordships' sense of justice.

What will be the effect of this Bill
upon the minds of those proprietors of
land in Ireland who have devoted their
lives, their fortunes, their energies, to
the development of the resources of
their country, and to setting an example
of order, industry, and progress to its
inhabitants ? In the minds of such men
proposals like these create utter dis-
may. They find the Government de-
nouncing agitation by its words, but ap-
parently countenancing that agitation
by its acts. They are anxious to give a
loyal support to English rule, and to be
firm upholders of the union between the

two countries ; but if they find that in
the hour of their adversity, when their
property, if not their lives are threatened,
they are betrayed by the Imperial Par-
liament, their loyalty will be chilled and
their energies paralyzed. i

My Lords, we are told that we must
pass this Bill, or accept the responsi-
bility for the consequences which may
follow upon its rejection. That is a
cruel dilemma in which to place this
House, and we have reason to complain
of Her Majesty's Grovernment for hav-
ing placed us in it. Let us, however,
if we are to have a choice of evils,
choose the alternative which will involve
the smallest amount of mischief. Before
we are deterred by the apprehension of
the results of the rejection of this Bill,
let us not forget what will be the results
if we pass it into law. We are told that
there will be agitation during the coming
winter if the people of Ireland are dis-
appointed of the relief which this Bill is
intended to afford. I venture to express
my humble opinion that any momentary
irritation which may arise from this cause
ought not to weigh for a moment against
the lasting encouragement to agitation
which will be given by the passing of a
measure such as this. I do not believe
that by passing it you will save the
wages of a single constable. You will,
on the contrary, if you pass it, give to
the agitators a tangible proof of their
success. They will return to their clients,
and they will say to them — "A tempo-
rary and local agitation has gained for
you a temporary and limited Bill; con-
tinue that agitation ; let it spread over
the face of the whole country ; and you
will enable us to obtain for you a Bill of
which the duration will be permanent,
and which will extend to the whole of
Ireland."

My Lords, I trust that th4 judgment
which your Lordships will, under circum-
stances of great difficulty, pass upon this
Bill, will be one conducive lo the best
interests of Ireland : in this Assembly,
at all events, political consistency, re-
spect for principle, regard ^Dnfthe eon*
tinuity of our legislation shoJiiM have a
home. I believe your Lordships will be
untrue to the best traditions of this
House if you give a second reading to a
measure which, should it find a place in
the Statute Book, will remain there a.
lasting record of ill-considered, precipi-
tate, and unjust legislation.

-J^p';#

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